The Owls’ third event of the fall season did not go as planned. After finishing sixth in the Quechee Club Collegiate Challenge in Vermont, Temple plummeted down the leaderboard at the Wolfpack Intercollegiate in Raleigh, North Carolina finishing 16th in a 17-team field.
The three-round event was played in two days, as two of the three rounds were played on the first day of the event. Temple finished at 44-over par for the tournament, which was 59 strokes behind winning school East Carolina.
Sophomores Trey Wren and Sam Soeth led the way for Temple on the player leaderboard finishing at eight-over and nine-over respectively. Redshirt-sophomore John Barone came in at 16-over followed by junior Mark Farley at 18-over. Freshman Marty McGuckin made his collegiate debut as Temple’s low man with a three-round total of 238 which was 25 strokes over par.
After his team put forth a lackluster performance, coach Brian Quinn quickly shouldered the blame.
“I’m disappointed in where we finished there’s no question about that,” Quinn said. “I need to do a better job of coaching these kids and getting them to dig down and to realize their complete and full potential.”
However, Quinn stopped short of accepting full responsibility for the team’s struggles. While the Owls are a young group, Quinn has urged those that are more experienced to enter the next phase in their Temple careers. Barone, now in his third year with the program, is at the forefront of Quinn’s concerns.
“I need a couple of these kids to step up a little bit,” Quinn said. “It’s time for [Barone] to step up and get ready to start playing here. He has one of the best golf swings I’ve ever taught.”
At the Quechee Club Collegiate Challenge, Barone finished 32nd overall for third among Temple golfers behind Wren and Soeth. While his score of seven-over was nine strokes better than what he carded this week at the Wolfpack Intercollegiate, Barone’s results thus far have remained inconsistent after his struggles in Raleigh.
The redshirt-sophomore believes he knows how to get things back in track. Barone emphasized cleaning up his swing in advance of the Georgetown Intercollegiate, which is on Oct. 17 and 18.
“I really struggled with my ball-striking,” Barone said. “I plan on hitting a lot of balls at the range this week.”
In addition, Barone believes improving his mental state on the golf course will result in better scores.
“It changes my outlook towards the game and I’ll be playing with confidence and not fear,” he added.
Quinn added that self-belief isn’t a problem for Soeth, who has been one of the positives for Temple in the fall.
“Sam has an inner-confidence within himself that he’s going to be ready to go,” Quinn said. “I will say that Sam is head and shoulders above the other kids on the team with that, 100 percent.”
However, Soeth believes his teammates all believe in themselves and the disappointment in North Carolina was a result of poor play close to the pin.
“I think we’re all pretty confident in our game,” Soeth said. “We left a lot of shots out there on the greens. There were too many unnecessary bogies and double bogies.”
The fall season is now halfway over for Temple. The Owls have next week off before the Georgetown Intercollegiate.
Greg Frank can be reached at Greg.Frank@Temple.edu or on Twitter @g_frank6.
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